Another month has passed and life continues to grow towards what you want or the other way round.

Did you set a goal early this year? Well, did you get what you want by now – after so many months of working hard for it? Apparently, most people don’t and that’s the problem with setting goals.

We cannot be setting goals with the intention of trying to get what we want because that will become a chasing game which will wear you out. Maybe not for you, but I know I will when I’m chasing ‘something’. The goal must be a part of us. My goal is to become who I want and where I want to be mentally and physically.

Your goals must be something that you achieve internally so that you can see it, taste it, smell it and feel it.

Wealth. Love. Connection. Knowledge. Experience.

If you were to evaluate what’s success, it boils down to being happy.

I’m not trying to play Zen Master here but to make a point how we make our lives complicated without understanding the true purpose of our action. Life doesn’t have to be that way.

There are a few things I’ve learned from observations and experiencing this year and I’m glad to share them with you today. Who knows, they may give you a shortcut for your journey to obtain the success you’re seeking…

i. Your mind attracts what you want. This year, I have my fair share of enjoying successes and experiencing setbacks in life. And when I sit back to think about it, they come in ‘sequences’. Once I’ve gained success, I’ll have the momentum to get another one. When I failed and stay in that state, another failure will come again. I don’t know, some called it Law of Attraction. To me, I strongly believe that you get what you want based on what your mind thinks because it ‘attracts’.

ii. There’s one time Grandma falls sick and stayed in the hospital for couple of days. When I visited her in the hospital, I felt blessed that she’s still in this beautiful world. Although it’s nothing serious, but my heart tells me one thing- nothing in this world will give me the same love and relationship I have with her.

There are only two factors that will remove your love and relationship with someone you care about- when he/she is no longer here or you have ignored the treasure you have today for something that is less valuable but perceived to be valuable. Let me warn you– once they’re gone, they’re gone. You should know who to call, hug or kiss by now.

iii. Know your roots. If you’re successful today, you’re probably once a ‘nobody’. Always be humble because it will give you more success in life. I mean, isn’t that how you got to where you are today? Knowing your roots also means remembering those who have supported you when you’re growing and stayed by your side through thin and thickness. They are just there because they want to be there for you with no other hidden expectations.

iv. Explore life like there’s no ending. Listen to new music. Visit new places. Eat at new restaurants. Play new sports. Meet new people. And an endless list of things you can do regardless of whether you’re wealthy or not. You see, money doesn’t stop you from exploring life. Obviously, you can’t do the many things that Bill Gates or Richard Branson can do but there are easily hundreds of things you can do with what you have today. Do you know why we live? I don’t have the answer but I’m 100% sure it’s not to work and whine about what we don’t have.

v. Life is great. As I’m writing this, I’m in my new condominium with nice yellow lightings, listening to a wonderful music and my wife is making a cup of coffee for me. I can feel the cool breeze coming in from the balcony while sitting on a soft brand new, purple sofa. In front of me, I can see a mirror- and when I looked deep; I thank God for giving me this amazing life. Not because my Ego’s saying I have an amazing life, but it’s really true.

You have an amazing life whether you want to admit it or not. There are people sleeping on the streets today, wandering to look for food and so on. Because you’re reading this, I dare to assume that you have a computer- which also means that you’re under a roof and are an educated person. You have eyes to read and a wonderful brain to think. For that, life is already great. The rest are bonuses.

Some might complain about being financially broke. You can be broke but you can never be poor because being broke is a temporarily state that can be changed. It might not be now but with sheer persistence and effort combined with using the right information and a willingness to take action, it’s just a matter of time before you look back satisfied and said, “I was once broke but now, I’m wealthy and living the life I’ve always wanted.” Does that sound good? Then, why not make it a reality because you can.

I got an email from AWeber told me that my AWeber account has been flagged due to unusual activities on my account.

I thought it’s real when I receive the message, but I realize something wrong when reading the message. The message was written in non professional way. The email format, capital and small letter were not written proper.

Another thing they sent to the wrong email address. I’m using another email to manage my AWeber account, but they sent the phishing email to my other email account. How can AWeber knows my other email? (This is funny)

I went to search engine Google.com and search “awebercomplaints.com”, and found a lot search results. There are many people got the same phishing email recently.

If you don’t know what is AWeber yet, basically it’s an email marketing service that let you build your subscribers database in their system. They also offer many cool features like create nice design webform with just a few clicks, auto follow up your subscribers, send email to your subscribers anytime, track how many subscribers open your email, track how many subscribers click your link in the email and many many more.

On March 11 at 2:46pm JST a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred near the northeastern coast of Japan, creating extremely destructive tsunami waves which hit Japan just minutes after the earthquake, and triggering evacuations and warnings across the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake and tsunami have caused extensive and severe damage in Northeastern Japan, leaving thousands of people confirmed dead, injured or missing, and millions more affected by lack of electricity, water and transportation.

Duplicate content is an issue for website owners because it affects their ranking in Google.com. Duplicated content decreases a website’s relevancy value in the eyes of the search engines, therefore its ranking suffers as a result. Sometimes, it’s not that they want to use duplicate content but they are unaware that similar content is already out there on the internet.

Search engines like Google disapproves of duplicated content. Your website can be ignored or even be banned. That is why it is best for you to remove duplicate content as early as possible to avoid hassles in your website’s ranking.

Keep in mind that because there are millions of sites that can be found on the Internet, users usually don’t like seeing duplicate contents, be it unintentional or intentional. It affects your website’s credibility and authority in the eyes of the users.

The first strategy to remove duplicate content is to create unique articles. In this way your website can be promoted to other article based websites as well. Keep in mind that you don’t always need to write the unique articles yourself. You can hire research content writers to do it for you.

Just make sure that their main job is to create unique articles. The articles they write should not be similar to other articles on the internet and point out the keywords that you want to be optimized as well.

Search engines like Google have “spiders” that crawl the web regularly and they normally discount content that have similarities. Although there is no such thing as a duplicate penalty for Google, it is still a good idea to remove duplicate content especially if it is detected on your site.

Remember that your site’s content should have relevant information. Create unique articles that contain information that are high in standard and relevant to the masses to ensure that it is viewed favorably by the search engines.

Do not forget that Google can consider you a spammer or having a malicious intent if too many duplicated content appears on your site so be vigilant about what you publish.

To make it easier for you, there are tools available to help you remove duplicate content. These tools will indicate that you have a similar content to other websites especially in articles, page titles, URL’s and other elements that can be detected.

It will also help measure the keyword density and similar texts in your content. Although it will cost you more, it is a worthwhile investment since you are trying to optimize your site including its contents.

Always review your site’s content and check if search engine spiders will definitely accept and rank your content. You can use the robot.txt file to help you detect any issues.

Detect the issues as early as possible and remove duplicate content at once. This should be done without hesitation since it will compromise your rank in the search engines.

Always be updated since search engines like Google are always on the lookout for duplicate contents.

There’s a useful website I would like to share about is an icon finder website.

Icon Finder allow you get free icon for personal use and commercial use. There’s a search filter that allow you search only for commercial use. Some icon only for personal use and you will need to pay a small fee for commercial use.

You can get a lot cool icon for your website, software and computer. If you’re applying the icon to your website or software, make sure you’re using the icon that comes with commercial license. Just select the search filter to “Allowed for commercial use”.

This is not any negative thinking but a good discovery from my own experiences.

Why I said “Nothing is perfect”?

Here’s the story why…

Recently I was so busy on creating product, designing a new website, integrating software and so on. During the work, I was so busy on making everything perfect. At the end of the day, everything were delayed to get done.

Even though I have make a better one, but still can’t really satisfied the work. This is really bad!

Project deadline is there and I have to deliver the product even though I’m not really satisfied the work. After a few days, I’m look back my work performance and progress. I found out that I shouldn’t trying to make things perfect because there’s no such thing ‘perfect’ in this world.

There’s no perfect product in the marketplace. We can only improve the product and make it better from time to time. So if I’m going to make the product perfect before deliver them, then the product will NEVER release to the public because by the time I thought that product is perfect, there will be a better one on the market.

It’s a NEVER ENDING game. There’s no PERFECT iPhone, iPad, Microsoft Window, Car, Laptop and so on. But they will have a better model and version from time to time. Don’t you agree with that?

I learned something from my mistake.

If the product already good, deliver it first and improve it later, make a better one later. Otherwise the ball will never get rolling. You will waste all the money, time and effort in researching for better product. At the end of the day, you don’t make any money and business fail.

Personally I think the word ‘perfect’ shouldn’t exist because nothing is perfect in this world. (I could be wrong but at least I don’t see anything is perfect for now)

If you’re like me, always trying to make things perfect, you might get the same problem like me. Never get the things done on time. LOL…

Feel free to leave your feedback and I love to know your thought as well.

Thank you!

-Sean Tan

Are you a perfectionist? Click here to take a test. (I have already took the test and it’s very accurate for me)

[tags] nothing is perfect, perfectionist hard to get ball rolling, no perfect product in this world [/tags]